Will the UCL 2023-24 Be The Most Exciting In The Last 10 Years?

10/03/2023 12:32 PM

From the next season, it would seem that a total of 36 clubs are going to be taking part in the big league. The old format once saw a total of 32 clubs divided up into 8 different groups, or four different teams. There is going to be a draw at the start of the season like there always is, but at the end of the day, this is going to create the league-phase fixture and nothing else. There are going to be 8 games for each of the clubs too. 4 of them are going to be at home and 4 of them are going to be away. The 36 teams are going to be divided up into 4 pots of 9. One thing to take note of is that Pot 1 is going to have the titleholders as well as the 8 clubs with the finest coefficients. The champions of the domestic leagues and the UEL titleholders are not going to be prioritised for the first pot. When you look at pot numbers 2 and 4, you will soon see that these are going to be coefficient. A lot of work is going to be done to make sure that clubs that are part of the same association are not drawn to each other. The league wants to avoid a deadlock as much as possible and that is why the leagues that have 4 clubs or more are going to play one match from another team but within the same country. From the final table, you have the top eight clubs which are going directly to round 16. Positions that are between 9 and 24 are going to go into a playoff picture so that they can earn back the other 8 places. This is going to be in round 16. Positions that are between 25 and 36 are going to be eliminated from Europe. Right now, there is no country protection like there is in any of the other knockout rounds.

Previous Seasons

Unlike some of the previous seasons, it seems that there is no drop down of teams when you look at the Champions League or even the Europa League. This is especially the case after you look at the league phase. When you have been eliminated, it seems that your whole European season is over. There is only going to be 1 knockout draw when you get past round 16 and teams will truly be seeded based on their final position. Of course, there is no country protection here. This means it’s so important to finish the table as high as possible. The higher you are, the better knockout route you will have. Of course, this might not be true but it does look like it could be the case on paper so it’s important to keep this in mind as much as possible.

Why is this Happening?

More games, sounds strange right? Why would the league want more games to happen when the structure was sound as it was? A lot of it comes down to money. More games mean more money. At the end of the day, the biggest clubs always tend to take a bigger slice of the broadcasting revenue too. When you look at the proposed plan which came out in 2021, you will soon see that the tournament doubled in size. It went from having just 125 games to having well over 225 games. If you look at it in terms of playability and Champions League betting odds, each team would have to play 10 games as part of the group phase. Now, things have been pulled back a bit. Things have been scaled back to just 8 group fixtures. This means that 189 games have happened in the season. Two extra match days are going to be needed for the Champions League group stage. The group stage is also going to finish at the end of January. Normally it would finish around December.

The Swiss Model

Rather than the teams being drawn into 8 groups, that consist of 4 teams, every single club will be placed into one big table. A lot of this is going to be based on points, rather than on a goal difference. This is similar to the Swiss system that you see in Chess. Each team does not play every single game. The group fixtures are known at the start of the season at the end of the day. This has been used in football as well as numerous other competitions. You also have a number of participants as well. You have the Concacaf Nations League and this has a lot of qualifying competition. Teams are all due to play four matches but the result of this is fed into a total of 34 nations.

The 4 Teams

So where are the 4 additional teams going to come from? At the end of the day, the number of clubs is going to rise, from 32 to 36. The new format essentially means that teams are guaranteed to have 8 games but a lot of them are going to play 10 at a minimum. 2 of the places are going to go to the best leagues in Europe this season. The place goes to the next team in the standings but they are not able to qualify automatically. Last season this would have been Atalanta and Liverpool, as an example. These places are most likely to go to clubs that reside at the top of the league. The first-place option would go to those who are ranked 5th and so forth. Of course, only time will tell what the future holds for the UCL but right now it looks like a lot is being done to make sure that the UCL is the most exciting that it has ever been. Make sure you keep up with this story if you want to know more or if you want to get into football as a hobby.